Cannabis SEO is a compliance discipline wearing a marketing hat. We've been the only people doing it full-time since 2019.
Operators, not generalists. Founder-led, cannabinoid-only, and three time zones deep. We've moved 118 CBD & minor-cannabinoid brands through Google reinstatements, AI citation programs, and digital PR placements that other agencies decline because of liability.
Started after watching five CBD brands get dropped by their agencies in the same quarter.
In 2019, every big SEO agency had a clause in their MSA that excluded cannabis. Hemp brands — even fully federally legal ones — couldn't get serviced. The ones who could, got the dregs: junior strategists, generic playbooks, and account managers who didn't understand the FDA letters their clients were getting.
I'd been doing health-vertical SEO for a decade and watched five smart CBD founders get dropped between January and April. So I quit, took my retainer book down to one cannabinoid brand, and built the playbook from scratch. Northern Hemp Co was client #1. They're still on the retainer today.
Seven years later, we're still the only agency on the planet that turns away non-cannabis prospects. Some weeks it's the smartest decision I've ever made. Some weeks it's the dumbest. But it means when a client emails about a Δ-8 schema penalty at 11pm, the person replying has seen it forty times.
Seven years of cannabinoid-only work.
A short tour of the moments that shaped how we run retainers, audit programs, and the rescue desk.
Five operating principles we've earned the hard way.
Built from the post-mortems, not the pitch decks. Every line below was once a mistake we made on a real retainer.
Cannabinoid-only, not "cannabis-friendly."
We don't take wellness or supplement clients on the side. Every hour our team spends is on cannabinoid SEO — that's why our compliance pattern library is the deepest in the category.
The founder reads every intake.
Sasha personally reviews every audit request. No SDR triage, no copy-paste decks. If the brand isn't a fit, we say so on the same call — and usually point to one of three agencies who could be.
Receipts beat narratives.
Every retainer ends each quarter with a 12-page receipts deck: prompt-panel deltas, citation logs, GBP grid screenshots, and link-by-link review. If a deliverable can't be evidenced, it doesn't make the deck.
Compliance is a deliverable, not a disclaimer.
We schema-map every health claim against current FDA, FTC, and state-level guidance — before it ships. Most agencies treat this as the client's problem. We treat it as the first thing on the audit.
Transparent pricing, flat retainers.
No "scope creep" surcharges, no mystery hourly rates. You'll see the line items on day one and they don't change unless you add a city or a category. Same retainer card we showed you in the audit is the one you sign.
Never sub out the hard parts.
Citation pitches, schema work, GBP suspensions, and PR drafts are written by retainer leads, never freelancers or AI. The expensive parts of the work are the only parts worth keeping in-house.
14 people, zero generalists.
Every retainer lead has shipped at least 3 years of cannabinoid-only work. Here are the four leads you'll most likely meet.
Reads every intake. Wrote the citation-led AI SEO playbook. Ex-MD at a top-10 health-vertical agency before going cannabinoid-only in 2019.
Runs all UK and EU retainers. Wrote our CBD Novel Foods compliance map. Speaks Polish, German, and FDA-warning-letter fluently.
Owns the GBP rescue desk. 142 dispensary reinstatements and counting. Rebuilt our review-distribution toolkit from scratch in 2024.
Runs cannabis-friendly trade press relationships. Pitches that have placed clients in Forbes Health, Healthline, Mary Jane, and Marijuana Moment.
Want the same founder-led intake for your brand?
Send a contact form, get a 28-page audit, or grab the redacted sample. No SDRs, no decks, no chase emails.